The fire was extinguished — but its memory still burned.
For days, the palace lay under a hush of mourning and unease. Smoke-stained walls were draped with white silk, servants moved like ghosts through the corridors, and whispers trailed behind every step of the princess.
Some said she had been saved by divine hands.
Others swore they had seen a shadow — a man walking through flames untouched.
Princess Isabel said nothing. She simply sat by her window, her once-bright eyes dim with questions she could not ask.
The physicians told her to rest, but her mind refused peace. Each night she woke gasping — her heart racing as though she had been running through fire again. And always, the same vision haunted her: a pair of golden eyes, watching from the dark.
Sometimes she thought she heard him — a faint voice beneath the rustle of rain, whispering her name like a memory she could never place.
"Xavier?" she murmured once, when the candlelight flickered strangely in her room.
The serpent raised his head from where he lay near her bed. His scales glimmered faintly in the light — too bright, too knowing.
He did not speak, but his gaze held hers.
And for a moment, she felt warmth — the same warmth that had cradled her in the fire.
Her hand drifted to the small gem she wore around her neck. She had found it still clutched in her palm when she awoke that night — faintly pulsing, as though alive. No one could explain it, yet she could not bear to part with it. It comforted her… even as it frightened her.
The court whispered behind her back now more than ever.
They called her the cursed princess.
The king avoided her eyes.
Even her maids crossed themselves when she passed.
Only Maya, her loyal servant, stayed — though even she looked uneasy whenever Xavier slithered near.
"My lady," Maya said one night, voice trembling as she adjusted the princess's covers. "There are rumors… that the creature you keep has brought misfortune upon this house. The priests are asking the king to send it away."
Isabel's gaze drifted to the window, where moonlight kissed the serpent's scales.
"Let them talk," she said softly. "He is the only one who stays."
Outside, in the silent corridors, the air stirred — as though something unseen passed through. The candles flickered, and the temperature dropped.
Lucifer was there, unseen, unseen but present — a shadow between worlds.
He watched her from beyond the veil, his expression unreadable. Her voice, her pain, her stubborn kindness — they pierced through the armor he had built for centuries.
He reached out, but his hand passed through the glass of her window like smoke. He could not touch her. Not without revealing himself. Not without consequence.
"Why…" he whispered, his voice breaking into the night, "why can't I look away?"
Above him, the stars shimmered coldly — silent judges in the heavens he once ruled.
The gem at her throat glowed faintly again, pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
And though worlds separated them, both felt the same ache.
One imprisoned by grace.
The other by fate.